Just
over one year ago, British journalists and politicians were fulminating
over photographs published in the Daily Mirror that appeared to
show Iraqi prisoners being abused by British soldiers. The British
military, it was claimed, now possessed incontrovertible proof that the
pictures were fake. Mirror editor Piers Morgan -- a fierce opponent
of the war -- was condemned far and wide for inciting additional hatred of
British troops in Iraq, so putting their lives at risk. The Daily
Mail’s Melanie Phillips said on BBC’s Newsnight program:

“I think it's an act
of treachery, actually, against the interests of this country. At a time
of war, to publish a lie which puts our troops in such an appalling light
is unforgivable.” (Newsnight, BBC2, May 14, 2004)

In the House of
Lords, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass asked:

“Did the dishonest
activity of Piers Morgan not compare with the treachery of William Joyce?
Was it not high treason and should not this latter-day Lord Haw-Haw be
made to feel the full rigours of the law? What action, including criminal
charges, does the Government anticipate will be taken against the former
editor?” (“Morgan ‘Like traitor Lord Haw-haw’,” The Express, May
28, 2004)

William Joyce, a
British passport holder, fled to Nazi Germany a few days before the start
of the Second World War in 1939 and spent the duration broadcasting
anti-British propaganda. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former press
chief, told a parliamentary committee:

“If it transpires
that these pictures are fake, staged, a hoax, then I don't honestly see
how Morgan's position is tenable.” (Alison Hardie, “Ingram asked to
apologise,” The Scotsman, May 12, 2004)

The intensity of the
political and media assault was more than enough to see Morgan sacked by
his employer, Trinity-Mirror. The media were as one in nodding sagely at
the outcome. A DailyTelegraph leader commented:

“It is no
exaggeration to say that Morgan's decision to publish those fake
photographs put thousands of young British lives at risk in Iraq, and has
jeopardised everything that our Servicemen have sacrificed so much to
achieve. What may have seemed like a bit of a game to Morgan was a matter
of life and death in Iraq. The Mirror is well rid of him.”
(“Morgan's last tabloid tale,” Daily Telegraph, May 15, 2004)

An Independent
leader observed: “The ramifications of the Mirror's misjudgement
were unusually grave, because of the subject matter and the climate in
Iraq. The lives of British servicemen and women were probably placed at
risk. Mr. Morgan's editor's chair will be seen as the appropriate price
for his misjudgement.” (“So farewell, then, Piers,” The Independent,
May 15, 2004)

Peter Preston wrote
in the Guardian:

“The staged
photographs increased the pressure on our boys in Basra and made it,
perhaps, more likely that they themselves would be in danger. You can
certainly see why the Mirror should have been sure before it
published. You can certainly make a hanging case out of it.” (Preston,
“End of the Piers show,” The Guardian, May 16, 2004)

Although definitive
proof of the fraudulence of the photographs was promised, it has never
been provided -- the issue was simply forgotten and the media moved on.

Earlier this month
all allegations were dropped against the only soldier charged with faking
the photos. “Apparently, there was no hard evidence of a hoax after all,”
Piers Morgan comments in the New Statesman. (Morgan, Diary, New
Statesman, May 30, 2005) Morgan told the BBC last month:

“I think it is time
the Government and the Ministry of Defence and the Queen's Lancashire
Regiment put up some real evidence that these pictures were indeed a hoax.
We have already seen from court-martials that much worse than we put
forward was going on.” (Chris Brooke, “Army loses fight over hoax
soldier,” The Sunday Times, April 24, 2005)

The lack of proof
one year on casts an interesting light on all those perceptive souls who,
after Morgan had been sacked, claimed they had known all along that
the pictures were an obvious hoax. Thus, the BBC’s Andrew Neil:

“They were fakes
from the start, they were clearly fakes. I said [so] within two days of
seeing them.” (Newsnight, May 15, 2004)

Channel 4's Jon Snow
was never in doubt: “It was pretty obvious they were a hoax from beginning
to end.” (Channel 4 News, May 15, 2004)

Eve Pollard, former
editor of the Sunday Mirror commented: “It was inevitable -- he had
to go.” (BBC, Newsnight, May 14, 2004)

It would be funny,
but for the usual caveats.

Serious Impacts --
The Sun And Saddam Hussein

A year on, and the
Mirror’s pro-war newspaper rival, the Sun, this month
published photographs of Saddam Hussein in his underwear. Previously
published photographs and footage of Saddam’s December 2003 capture and
medical examination were felt by many Iraqis to be deeply disrespectful
and humiliating -- insurgents have cited this specific event as a factor
in motivating their resort to violence.

George Bush's deputy
press secretary, Trent Duffy, said the release of the Sun’s
pictures violated American military regulations, and probably the Geneva
Conventions. He added of the conflict Iraq: “I think this could have a
serious impact." (David E. Sanger and Alan Cowell, “Hussein Photos in
Tabloids Prompt US Call to Investigate,” New York Times, May 21,
2005)

The third Geneva
Convention (Article 13) states:

“Prisoners of war
must at all times be humanely treated... Likewise, prisoners of war must
at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or
intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”

Also:

“Prisoners of war
are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their
honour ...” (Richard Beeston and Michael Theodoulou, “Saddam ‘to sue for
$1m’ over photos taken in prison cell,” The Times, May 21, 2005)

The Daily Mail
reported fears that the photographs, which have been published extensively
on the internet and shown on several Arab satellite TV stations, “could
spark a bloody backlash. There could also be wider anger across the Middle
East at the degradation of a man who says he is a Muslim.” (David
Williams, “Saddam vows to sue over leaked pictures,” Daily Mail,
May 21, 2005)

The Los Angeles
Times suggested that the pictures “could be seen as a slap at Sunni
Muslim Arabs,” noting that many members of the minority already feel
disenfranchised and humiliated by the invasion and the ouster of Saddam
Hussein, a Sunni. The paper added:

“The images also
could anger Muslims outside Iraq who feel that the United States is
insensitive to Muslim beliefs and culture. Muslims typically take care to
avoid appearing in public in less than full attire.” (James Gerstenzang
and Louise Roug, “Hussein Photo Angers US,” Los Angeles Times, May
21, 2005)

A government worker
in Baghdad was quoted as saying: “Regardless of whatever he [Saddam] was
before, he is still an Iraqi. The goal of showing these pictures is to put
shame on the Iraqis.” (Ibid)

Certainly the timing
of the publication of the photographs could hardly be worse -- at least
620 people, including 58 US troops, had been killed in Iraq in a massive
upsurge in violence since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari
announced a new Shiite-dominated government. The figure now stands at more
than 700 killed. On May 29, one British soldier was killed and four
wounded by a roadside bomb in the south of Iraq.

In short, the
pictures have created an international storm on a par with last year‘s
furor over the Mirror’s “hoax” photos, and they also appear likely
to have lethal consequences for US-UK troops in Iraq.

But while political
and media commentators demanded the head of the Mirror’s anti-war
editor for endangering British lives, there has been negligible criticism
of the Sun’s managing editor, Graham Dudman. A typical comment was
provided by Guardian Unlimited, citing Paul Dacam, a law firm media
partner:

“There's a potential
this breaches his rights of confidence and privacy. The question is
whether there's a public interest in showing these very personal shots,
particularly on the front page.” (‘Saddam pics no goldmine, says
Clifford,’ Guardian Unlimited, May 20, 2005)

But there have been
no shrieks of “high treason” and “treachery” at the endangering of British
troops, no calls for Dudman to be sacked. Dudman is entirely unrepentant.
When Media Lens asked him if he thought the published pictures had put
British soldiers’ lives at increased risk, he replied simply:

“The Sun is
proud to run the pictures and we will be running more tomorrow.” (Email to
Media Lens, May 20, 2005)

Thought Control And The Critical Mass
Consensus

The above is an
excellent example of how the establishment is able to shape reality to
serve its ends. With restricted access to facts and trustworthy sources,
it is often extremely difficult for the public to determine the truth on
any given issue. In forming a judgment, people are heavily swayed by the
appearance of a consensus created by multiple sources arriving at the same
conclusion. When a large number of authoritative commentators --
political, media, corporate and military -- are seen to agree, many people
will assume that their conclusion must be reasonable. If the Guardian
is saying it, if senior politicians and journalists on Newsnight
and Channel 4 News are saying it, it must be true. The psychologist
Stanley Milgram noted:

Thus, by the time
Piers Morgan was sacked, the sheer weight and apparent diversity of
authoritative criticism was such that many people were convinced that
Morgan had to be sacked for endangering British lives, that the
photographs clearly were faked, and so on.

If the same
criticism had been leveled at the Sun’s Graham Dudman, doubtless many
people would also have been persuaded that he was guilty of treachery,
that he obviously had to go, and he might well have been forced to resign.
But this did not happen, because the establishment did not want it to
happen.

In a similar way,
many people were persuaded by a critical mass of establishment opinion
that Saddam Hussein presented a threat, that a war backed by a second UN
resolution would have been legitimate and warranted. Many people accept
that the US-UK “coalition” should continue to fight its war unhindered in
Iraq. In fact all of these arguments were and are little more than
absurdities.

If the kind of
criticism ranged against Piers Morgan were ranged against the illegal
US-UK occupation -- with a range of powerful opinion demanding a genuinely
international solution to the escalating slaughter -- public opinion would
be very different. As it is, there has been almost literally zero
discussion, anywhere, of the possibility that a peaceful resolution to the
conflict might be sought through negotiation and compromise.

Why? Because
anything less than outright Western victory and control in Iraq is not
even thinkable for the establishment with the power to generate a critical
mass consensus. Even though Iraqi insurgents are resisting an illegal
superpower occupation of their country, there is almost no sense whatever
in the mass media that their cause -- whatever one might think of their
means -- is fundamentally legitimate. By contrast, the power of
establishment propaganda is such that almost everyone accepts that
similarly motivated fighters resisting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in
the 1980s were “freedom fighters”. It is taken for granted that they had
the right to defend their country from attack. Thought control in modern
society, then, depends on a narrow range of elite interests creating the
false impression of a broad consensus. This helps explain why so much
media content makes so little sense. The less we truly understand about
politics in Iraq, Northern Ireland, the European Union, Africa, climate
change and so on, the more likely we are to meekly accept the manufactured
“consensus”.

State-corporate
control is, however, facing an unprecedented challenge. John Naughton
writes in the Observer:

“What's happening is
a small but significant change in our media ecology. All journalists worth
their salt have always known that out there are readers, listeners or
viewers who know more about a story than they do. But until recently,
there was no effective way for this erudition or scepticism to find public
expression. Letters to the editor rarely attract public attention -- or
impinge on the consciousness of journalists.

“Blogging changes
all that. Ignorant, biased or lazy journalism is instantly exposed,
dissected and flayed in a medium that has global reach.” (Naughton,
“Journalists must stop being in denial: bloggers are here to stay,” The
Observer, May 29, 2005)

If this new global
medium is rooted in compassion for suffering, it will expose the lie of a
corporate press inherently compromised by corporate greed. This, in turn,
will loosen the grip of propaganda on the public mind, so generating very
real opportunities for progressive change.